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Abstract
The Cephonodes hylas (L.) of the family Sphingidae first time described in detail with special reference to its head components, venations of both wings and male and female genitalia. The systematic position within the genus is also briefly discussed by using apomorphic characters.
Introduction
The representatives of the genus Cephonodes are distributed throughout Ethiopian, Oriental and Australian regions. Eighteen species are recorded under the genus Cephonodes Hubner. Moore (1882-83) described only one species of C. hylas from Ceylon with its brief description of colour pattem and larvae. Cotes and Swinhoe (1887) mentioned only one species C. hylas as Hemaris hylas from Japan, China, and Australia, all parts of India, Ceylon and Africa in their catalogue of moths of India. Hampson (1892) in his fauna of British India including Ceylon and Burma described only one species C. hylas with its brief description and colour pattem of larvae.
Rothschild and Jordan (1903) revised the lepidopterous family Sphingidae including two species of the genus Cephonodes viz. hylas and picus. Bell and Scott (1937) in his fauna of British India Ceylon and Burma described only two species viz. C. hylas (L.) and C. picus (Cramer) with reference to the external morphological characters of imago, larvae and pupae. Efetov (1986) studied the species C. hylas from Russia. Hashmi and Tashfeen (1992) mentioned two species viz. C. hylas and C. picus in their checklist, Lepidoptera of Pakistan.
Kamaluddin et al. (1999) attempted cladistic analysis, key to the genera and distributional ranges of the family Sphingidae of Pakistan discussing the apomorphies of thirty genera. Pittaway and Kitching (2000) studied Sphingidae of the Eastern Palaearctic including Siberia, Russain Far East, Mangolia, China, Taiwan, Korean Peninsula and Japan and listed only two species viz. C. hylas and C. xanthus. Yen et al. (2003) gave a revised and an annotated checklist of the Tiawanese Sphingidae with a new subspecies of Hawkmoth from Lanyu, Taiwan mentioning only one species of Cephonodes hylas. Kamaluddin et al. (2007) in their checklist of moths listed only one species Cephonode hylas recorded from Dir agency.
Materials and Methods
The specimens were collected from various localities of Sindh and Punjab on light as well as by hand picking method and identified with the help of literature and also...